Reviewers reject papers for overclaiming more often than for bad work. The sentence “our model proves that recycling reduces import dependence” will be attacked, and correctly, because a model does not prove anything about the world — it shows what follows from its assumptions. The same sentence with shows, scoped to the assumptions, is unattackable and says just as much.
This is the precision-of-language leg of the humanities, the thing composition courses drill and engineering degrees never mention. It is also the cheapest fix in this entire curriculum: it is a search-and-replace pass that measurably changes how your work is received.
None needed. The distinctions are below and the practice is on your own draft.
If you want one reference, the hedging sections of Hyland’s work on academic discourse are the scholarly treatment, but it is not required reading for this.
None.
Every claim verb encodes a strength. Ranked, strongest first:
proves · demonstrates · shows · indicates · suggests · is consistent with
A model run supports shows at best, and only inside its assumptions. Experimental replication supports demonstrates. Almost nothing in computational research supports proves — that word belongs to mathematics, and using it elsewhere tells a reviewer you do not know the difference.
Then the second half, which matters more: state the scope condition. Not “recycling reduces import dependence” but “under the 2035 demand trajectory and with collection rates above 60%, recycling reduces import dependence.” The scope condition is not a weakening. It is the part that makes the claim true, and it pre-empts the objection rather than waiting for it.
Audit your own draft. Every sentence making a claim about the world: the verb used, what your evidence actually licenses, and the revision. Then make the revisions.
A CV is the same document type with a different audience: claims about the world, made in verbs, which a reader will check. The failure mode is identical and more common. Led is not contributed to. Developed is not used. Designed is not ran.
Two questions per bullet:
Overclaiming on a CV fails the same way it fails in a paper. The reader who catches one stops believing the rest.
The audit table, plus a link to the revised draft.
This replaces your writing entry for the week you do it. Submit it to that week’s WW assignment in Canvas — the same one you would have submitted anyway. It is not an extra piece of work on top of the log.
You do not submit anything to the milestone yet. When all five skills in M3 are done, submit the M3 — Reading and Reasoning assignment, which is just an index saying which week each one went in.